The devices and method described below relate to the diagnosis and treatment of breast lesions, and more generally, to the diagnosis and treatment of tumors and lesions throughout the body.
Biopsy is an important procedure used for the diagnosis of patients with cancerous tumors, pre-malignant conditions, and other diseases and disorders. Typically, in the case of cancer, when the physician establishes by means of procedures such as palpation, mammography or x-ray, or ultrasound imaging that suspicious circumstances exist, a biopsy is performed. The biopsy will help determine whether the cells are cancerous, the type of cancer, and what treatment should be used to treat the cancer. Biopsy may be done by an open or percutaneous technique. Open biopsy, which is an invasive surgical procedure using a scalpel and involving direct vision of the target area, removes the entire mass (excisional biopsy) or a part of the mass (incisional biopsy). Percutaneous biopsy, on the other hand, is usually done with a needle-like instrument through a relatively small incision, blindly or with the aid of an imaging device, and may be either a fine needle aspiration (FNA) or a core biopsy. In FNA biopsy, individual cells or clusters of cells are obtained for cytologic examination and may be prepared such as in a Papanicolaou smear. In core biopsy, as the term suggests, a core or fragment of tissue is obtained for histologic examination which may be done via a frozen section or paraffin section. One important area where biopsies are performed is the diagnosis of breast tumors.
Traditionally, the biopsy technique for breast tumors involves placing a biopsy device multiple times into the breast and taking several samples of tissue from a mass or tumor which is suspected of being cancerous. Several samples are required to be sure that some tissue from the suspect mass has been captured, and enough tissue has been sampled to ensure that, if disperse cancer cells exist in the suspect mass some of those cancer cells will be captured in the samples. Each time the device is placed the physician must locate and direct the device with ultrasound imaging into the correct position near the suspect mass. Some breast tumors and lesions are very well defined, hard spherical masses which grow within the soft, compliant breast tissue. It is difficult to force a needle into these lesions because they are resistant to puncture and fairly mobile. Forcing the biopsy needle into the lesion is like trying to spear an apple floating in water.
Vacuum assisted biopsy system proposed by Biopsys involves sucking a breast lesion into a cannula and shearing off the captured edge of the lesion to obtain a biopsy sample. The device uses a vacuum to collect tissue into the side of an open tubular device, and then uses a rotating corer to cut the tissue collected. The rotating corer is slidable within the tubular section and can be pulled back to remove the tissue collected in the rotating corer. An additional stylet inside the rotating corer can be used to push the tissue out of the corer. The device can be rotated on its axis to remove a sample, 360 degrees around the central placement of the device. Typically, physicians sample six to eight cores. One advantage of this device is that the physician does not have to remove the device for additional biopsy samples. However, the tumor itself must be re-engaged after every coring operation, which entails substantial effort in relocation and confirmation that the target suspect mass has been engaged by the side aperture. Tumors may be too tough to yield to the suction and deform as necessary to enter the side opening of the cannula. Doctors also currently use the device to take a circular sequence of cores by rotating the device about its long axis or by sideways movement of the suction head to take a line of cores.
After biopsy and analysis, the tumor must be treated with a separate device, as Biopsys teaches that their coring device should not be used for resection. Indeed, the device is not designed to perform resection with assurance that complete resection of a suspect mass has been accomplished. Mechanical cutting and disruption of the tissue structure and cancer cell dispersion (that is, tearing of the tissue around the cancer and movement of the cancer cells amongst normal tissue) will result in unintentional delivery of cancer cells into healthy tissue adjacent the lesion.
The devices and methods described below provide for diagnosis of tumors within the breast. The devices include a probe with structures that permit the surgeon to secure a suspect mass or tumor within the breast during the biopsy procedure. The probe is provided with a rigid tube and a sharp distal tip. To secure the tumor to the probe, the surgeon pierces the tumor with the distal rod. Gas tubing extending within the rigid tube directs coolant to the distal tip to cool the tip, the tumor then adhering to the cooled probe.
The devices also include a coring apparatus with structures that permit the surgeon to core a sample of the tumor during the biopsy procedure. The coring apparatus is provided with a cannula that advances through a tumor to core a sample of the tumor. The coring apparatus is adapted for use with the probe. The probe is inserted into the cannula with the distal tip of the probe extending beyond the distal tip of the cannula. The surgeon can insert the devices into the body until the probe pierces the tumor. Coolant is directed to the distal tip of the probe to lightly cool the distal tip and the tumor. The lightly cooled distal tip adheres to the tumor cells. Once secured to the probe, the surgeon can core a sample of the tumor with the coring apparatus. After coring is complete, the surgeon can retract the device with the core sample. This method of biopsy prevents destruction of the tumor cells and reduces the dispersion of tumor cells to healthy cell areas.